bondsman

plural bondsmen · alternative bondman

1. A male slave.

   Near-synonym: nonfreeman

   2 more examples

   To Sleep I give my powers away; ⁠My will is bondsman to the dark; […]

   1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto IV”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC

   The one selection he [Frederick Douglass] “perused and reperused,” he remembered, was “Dialogue Between a Master and a Slave.” The naivete and simplicity of this philosophical exchange between a slaveowner and his bondsman “profoundly affected” the early teenage slave as he read its improbable conclusion. What Douglass at least discovered here was that slavery was something subject to “argument,” even between master and slave; that the slave would convince the master to liberate him might seem unlikely in reality, but this did not tarnish the piece’s fundamental point—the slave won the moral debate. The teenage slave needed all the examples he could find of reason winning over power; he was surrounded and imprisoned by the opposite message. The bondsman even gets the last word, warning the slaveholder that, in spite of his moment of “kindness,” he is still “surrounded by implacable foes” bent on “revenge.”

   1997 [1797], David W. Blight, “Editor's Introduction: The Peculiar Dialogue Between Caleb Bingham and Frederick Douglass”, in Caleb Bingham, edited by David W. Blight, The Columbian Orator, Bicentennial Edition (1997 republishing), New York University Press, →ISBN

   Synonyms: nonfreeman · Antonyms: freeman, freedman

2. A male indentured servant.
3. Someone who signs a bond that states that they have taken responsibility for someone else's obligations.